Good product manager
Автор работы: Пользователь скрыл имя, 25 Марта 2013 в 12:55, доклад
Описание работы
Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and the
competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and
confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the product. Good product managers
take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the product.
They are responsible for right product/right time and all that entails.
Файлы: 1 файл
good-product-manager.pdf
— 52.15 Кб (Скачать файл)| Page 1 |
Good Product Manager,
Bad Product Manager
Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and the
competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and
confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the product. Good product managers
take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the product.
They are responsible for right product/right time and all that entails. A good product
manager knows the context going in (the company, our revenue funding, competition,
etc.), and they take responsibility for devising and executing a winning plan (no
excuses).
Bad product managers have lots of excuses. Not enough funding, the engineering
manager is an idiot, Microsoft has 10 times as many engineers working on it, I'm
overworked, I don't get enough direction. [Netscape CEO] Barksdale doesn't make these
kinds of excuses and neither should the CEO of a product.
Good product managers don't get all of their time sucked up by the various
organizations that must work together to deliver right product right time. They don't
take all the product team minutes, they don't project manage the various functions; they
are not gophers for engineering. They are not part of the product team; they manage the
product team. Engineering teams don't consider Good Product Managers a "marketing
resource." Good product managers are the marketing counterparts of the engineering
manager. Good product managers crisply define the target, the “what” (as opposed to
the “how”) and manage the delivery of the “what.” Bad product managers feel best
about themselves when they figure out “how”. Good product managers communicate
crisply to engineering in writing as well as verbally. Good product managers don't give
direction informally. Good product managers gather information informally.
Good product managers create collateral, FAQs, presentations, and white papers that
can be leveraged. Bad product managers complain that they spend all day answering
questions for the sales force and are swamped. Good product managers anticipate the
serious product flaws and build real solutions. Bad product managers put out fires all
day. Good product managers take written positions on important issues (competitive
silver bullets, tough architectural choices, tough product decisions, markets to attack or
yield). Bad product managers voice their opinion verbally and lament that the “powers
that be” won't let it happen. Once bad product managers fail, they point out that they
predicted they would fail.
Good product managers focus the team on revenue and customers. Bad product
managers focus team on how many features Microsoft is building. Good product
managers define good products that can be executed with a strong effort. Bad product
managers define good products that can't be executed or let engineering build whatever
they want (i.e. solve the hardest problem).
| Page 2 |
Good product managers think in terms of delivering superior value to the market place
during inbound planning and achieving market share and revenue goals during
outbound. Bad product managers get very confused about the differences amongst
delivering value, matching competitive features, pricing, and ubiquity. Good product
managers decompose problems. Bad product managers combine all problems into one.
Good product managers think about the story they want written by the press. Bad
product managers think about covering every feature and being really technically
accurate with the press. Good product managers ask the press questions. Bad product
managers answer any press question. Good product managers assume press and
analyst people are really smart. Bad product managers assume that press and analysts
are dumb because they don't understand the difference between "push" and "simulated
push."
Good product managers err on the side of clarity vs. explaining the obvious. Bad
product managers never explain the obvious. Good product managers define their job
and their success. Bad product managers constantly want to be told what to do.
Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week, because they
are disciplined. Bad product managers forget to send in their status reports on time,
because they don't value discipline.
Ben Horowitz
Director of Product Management
Summer 1996